A Bad Day for Sunshine--A Novel

by Darynda Jones

  At least Auri’s day was going better than hers.

  6

  Today’s Special: You! You are special!

  (Also, the chicken burrito is $5.)

  —SIGN AT TIA JUANA’S FINE MEXICAN CUISINE

  With about five minutes of class left, Auri watched as her classmates performed musical chairs so they could make plans on when to meet to do their interviews. Some cheated and agreed to simply fill out the forms themselves instead of doing an interview and then trading papers before class. Auri hoped her partner wouldn’t suggest they take that route.

  Since he’d made no move to sit next to her, she was left with little choice but to go to him. He may not have cared about his grades, but she cared greatly about hers, and she was not about to let a grumpy grizzly risk her requisite A.

  She took the seat directly in front of him. He watched her. When he made no effort to break the ice with conversation, she took the initiative.

  She let her gaze drop, unable to look at him—his gaze was so intense—and got on with it. “Okay, I get it. You don’t like me. Join the club. But we have an assignment, and I can’t afford a zero, so—”

  Before she got another word out, he slid the paper out of her hand, turned it over, and wrote on the back. When he finished, he handed it to her and waited.

  She read the phone number. “Is this your cell?”

  He nodded, then asked, “Why don’t I like you?” His voice was smooth and deep, and it did the same things to her it had before when he was reading the poem.

  “Because I called the cops at the lake.”

  His lids narrowed as though trying to figure her out.

  “That’s what everyone thinks, anyway.”

  He handed her his paper. She turned it over and wrote her number on the back, her hand shaking slightly.

  “Do I make you nervous?” he asked.

  She scowled at him.

  For the first time, he let a grin slide across his face. The effect was nothing short of spectacular.

  She cleared her throat and went back to writing. Or she would have if she hadn’t completely forgotten her address. Panic surged inside her. As did her grasp on reality, apparently.

  “Why are you shaking?”

  This was getting ridiculous. She lived on Solaris Drive. She knew that much. “Oh, you know. That’s what happens when the whole school is out to get even with the narc.”

  “Ah.”

  She gave up and handed the paper back to him. “How about I just come to you?”

  “You live behind your grandparents’ house, right?”

  How did he know that? “Yes.”

  He handed the paper back. “One eleven.”

  “What?”

  One corner of his mouth tilted. “Your new address. It’s 111 Solaris Drive.” When she gaped at him, he raised a hand in surrender. “I helped build it. You’re all your grandparents talk about.”

  She felt her cheeks warm as she wrote down her address for reasons she couldn’t fathom. He knew it better than she did.

  “Do you have any afternoons free this week?” she asked. When he didn’t answer, she looked up at him.

  After a long moment, he said, “Every single one.”

  The way he said it caused a tingling sensation in her stomach.

  “Hi!”

  Auri started and looked up at the blonde standing beside them.

  “I’m Chastity. We met this summer, but you probably don’t remember. That’s okay, though. I’m horrible with names, too. I’m much better with faces. I have to do something to associate a name with a face. Like with yours. Your hair is like a sunrise, so now I remember it. Aurora. But everyone calls you Auri. I remember that part without a mnemonic device.”

  Cruz hadn’t bothered giving Chastity even an ounce of his attention. It was all focused on Auri, and she was trying to figure out why. Was this a joke? Was she being punked? He’d been furious with her when the principal came during first period. Why was he being so nice now?

  “I remember,” was all Auri got in before Chastity started anew. Thankfully, the bell rang so the girl could catch her breath.

  When Cruz stood, he purposely blocked Chastity’s view of her, effectively dismissing the poor girl. Not everyone had mastered social skills.

  Auri stood and slid her backpack over her shoulders, a tad grateful for his intervention. Chastity would take some getting used to.

  Some boys passed by and patted Cruz on the back or shoulder, promising to see him later. He barely acknowledged them. It was as though he were an unwilling member of the popular clique. Auri had never seen anything like it. He took her schedule, scanned it, then walked with her to the hall where she saw her newest frenemies.

  No, that wasn’t true. In order for Lynelle and her group to be called frenemies, they would have to have been nice to her at some point. So not the case.

  If the glowers from Lynelle and the gang had been bad before, she’d just earned their eternal wrath. Their expressions, especially Lynelle’s, when they saw her walking with Cruz were at first shock and then cold, calculating anger.

  Maybe Lynelle had a thing for Cruz, but she had a boy by her side everywhere she went. Liam Eaton. The rich jock who spent his summers in Paris and, according to rumor, had a Porsche waiting for him when he turned sixteen next year.

  Maybe Lynelle and Liam were just friends. Either way, Auri had a feeling things were going to get much worse before they got better.

  Her phone vibrated. She took it out of her jacket pocket and replied to her mom’s text with a thumbs-up. At least her day was probably going better than Auri’s.

  * * *

  “She’s not in school today,” Zee said when Sun and Quincy walked into the station. She had to speak up, as men were boarding up the gaping hole in the front of the building. “And no one called in to excuse her.”

  “What do we know about them?” she asked her deputies before taking a file Price handed her.

  “They’re new to the area,” he said. “Originally from Chicago. Been here about eight months. The husband is from money. The wife, your typical trophy, was a waitress.”

  “They only have the one kid?” Sun asked, scanning the contents of what little they had on the family.

  Zee chimed in, “As far as we know, but these rich people always have skeletons in their closets.”

  “True.” Sun wondered how much she should pressure Mari St. Aubin. If she knew more than she was letting on, now was certainly the time to come squeaky clean.

  Quincy leaned on the desk beside her. “Either Marianna St. Aubin is genuinely distraught, or she is one hell of an actress.”

  Sun scanned the deputies surrounding her. “I think it’s time I hit the streets.”

  “You mean—?” he asked, surprised she’d go there.

  She nodded. “I mean.” If anyone had dirt on the St. Aubins, it would be the Book Babes, her mother’s book club, a.k.a. a front for drinking wine and gossiping. “They’re expecting me, anyway. I promised to talk to them about law enforcement today.”

  “On your first day of work?”

  “Don’t start.” The things her mother could talk her into. “They’re about to get a crash course. In the meantime, you guys keep digging.”

  Salazar raised her hand. Unnecessary, but effective. “What about an Amber Alert?” She gauged the reaction of her colleagues. “Is it too soon?”

  “An Amber Alert is never too soon.” If anything, they were usually too late. “Why don’t you get that going?”

  She brightened. “You got it, boss.”

  “Price,” she said, getting the young deputy’s attention. “I don’t suppose you have any connections in Chicago PD?”

  Price wasn’t from Chicago, but Detroit was only a few hours away. He could have friends on the force there. She could get all the official reports on the St. Aubins there were and still know very little about the dynamics of the family. She wanted the gossip. The calls that weren’t reported becaus
e of their wealth and power.

  Was there any history of domestic violence? Alcoholism? Prescription drug addiction?

  He tossed her a knowing grin. “I’m on it.”

  “Good man,” she said, hurrying out the door.

  “You want backup?” Quincy called out to her.

  She snorted, then changed her mind and turned back to him. Interrogating a group of women was one thing. Interrogating a group of women while a man they’d repeatedly referred to as stupid hot was another.

  “Come to think of it.”

  Quincy jumped up and followed her a little too enthusiastically. He’d always had a thing for her mom. An affinity thing. A disturbing thing.

  “Just keep your hands to yourself,” she warned him.

  He chuckled. “It’s not my hands you need to worry about.”

  Excellent point.

  * * *

  “So,” Quincy said on the way over, “you’re going to talk to the nosiest people in town about law enforcement.”

  “I know,” Sun said, deflating. “Just don’t let Wanda corner you. That woman’s a menace.” Wanda Stephanopoulos was a firecracker with the damage potential of a grenade, only less stable. Like a Molotov cocktail.

  “I think she likes me.”

  “They all like you. That’s why you’re here. You’re my distraction. They’ll be so enamored with you, they’ll answer all my questions without too much fuss.”

  “Have you even met your mother?”

  Sun conceded with a shrug. “It’s worth a shot.”

  “I feel so used.” When she raised a brow at him, he added, “Just how I like it.”

  They pulled into the crowded driveway of Darlene Tapia, one of Sun’s mother’s oldest friends. It was apparently her week to host the book club. Besides Darlene’s small crossover, several cars lined the street in front of the house, including Elaine Freyr’s Buick Encore. All sensible vehicles for fairly sensible women.

  Wanda Stephanopoulos, on the other hand, drove a shiny red Dodge Hellcat. God help the town. The woman was barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel. It took up most of the driveway. Probably because she couldn’t park to save her life.

  Elaine ran out to meet them before they could get out of her cruiser. “You’re late,” she said, a smile on her face and a glass of wine in her hand.

  As Sun stepped out, her mother’s eaglelike vision locked on to the bandages on her hands.

  “What happened?” she fairly screeched, almost spilling the wine. Thankfully, the woman had catlike reflexes when it came to alcoholic beverages. She took one of Sun’s hands into her own to inspect it.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “A car crashed through the front of the station, showering me with glass before it ran me over.”

  Her mother’s pretty mouth pinched up at the corners. “Fine, don’t tell me.” She saw Quincy and brightened.

  He walked around and gave her a hug as the other women streamed out of the house to greet them, heedless of the chill in the air. And they’d clearly had wine with breakfast.

  Sun got a hug from each of the women present. And all but one had a glass of wine in her hand. Wanda didn’t have a glass. She had an entire bottle, and she sloshed the liquid on Quincy’s uniform when she did everything but wrap her legs around him during their hug.

  Oh yeah, this was going to be great.

  * * *

  Sun let Quincy field questions while she followed one Mrs. Ruby Moore, the muffin maker, to the kitchen to grab a few. She wasn’t sure how well muffins went with wine, but at least the women would have something in their stomachs other than fermented grapes.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” the woman said when she noticed Sun behind her. “We’re so excited you’re back. Your mother is over the moon.”

  “I’m glad,” she said, trying to think of how to word her inquiry.

  The woman, a stout sixtysomething, didn’t miss a step as she went about her business.

  “Is Myrtle going to be okay?” Sun asked.

  When they’d walked into the house, they’d found an elderly woman asleep on the couch, a half-drunk glass of wine dangerously close to tipping over in her hand. Sun remembered her. She’d worked for her doctor for years.

  “Oh, she’ll be fine,” Ruby said with a dismissive wave. “She’s drinking grape juice. She always passes out either way. No need to waste the good stuff.”

  Sun laughed softly. “I wanted to thank you for the muffins you sent to the station.”

  “Oh, pfft,” she pffted. “I love making them. I always wanted to open my own muffin shop and call it Moore Muffins. It’s a nice play on words, don’t you think?”

  “I do. And you certainly have the talent.” She gestured toward the warm muffins Ruby was loading onto a tray along with her signature sauce, a sugary butter glaze. Sun’s mouth watered just thinking about it. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Well, you know Theodore,” she said as if that explained it.

  She didn’t know Theodore, not really, but she wasn’t going to tell Ruby that. “Can I ask you something?”

  Ruby stopped what she was doing and turned to her. “Of course, sweetheart.”

  Sun cleared her throat, suddenly uncomfortable, then just came out with it. “Are you psychic?”

  The woman’s expression didn’t waver. In fact, if Sun didn’t know better, she’d have sworn Ruby purposely froze her face to hide what was going on behind it.

  After a moment, she blinked and went back to her muffins with a soft laugh. “You kids. Always joking around.”

  Okay. She’d bite. “Then how come every time you send a basket of muffins to the station, all hell breaks loose? Or so I’m told.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. I just made too many muffins and decided to share.”

  If there was one thing Sun had learned first as a police officer and then a detective, it was when to keep her mouth shut. And that’s what she did. She leveled a patient smile on the poor woman and waited.

  It didn’t take long.

  “You can’t tell Theodore,” she said in a hushed voice that startled Sun.

  “Ruby, are you safe? Will he hurt you?”

  She snorted. “Theo? Oh, good heavens, no. I just … well, I promised … I mean, he doesn’t know…”

  “That you’re psychic?”

  She shook her head. “No. He knows that part. He just doesn’t know that I use my powers for good. He thinks I gave it all up years ago after this thing with a rattlesnake and a lasagna. It’s a long story. Anyway, he doesn’t know I still practice.”

  Sun nodded, almost understanding. She blamed the town. Peculiar things and all.

  “You’re not going to tell him, are you?” Ruby asked.

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  Ruby rested a grateful hand on her arm. “Do the others know?”

  “You mean everyone at the station? Let’s just say your muffins have become legendary.”

  “Oh, well, that’s good. I guess.” She picked up the tray and walked into the living room.

  “It’s about time,” Wanda said to her, eyeing the muffins. “We’re starving.”

  “The jig’s up, guys.”

  “Already? We just got here.”

  Ruby put the tray on the coffee table. “No, I mean, she knows.”

  But Sun’s interest rocketed to her mom’s best friend, Darlene Tapia. Because when Ruby made the announcement about the jig being up, all expressions morphed into one of mass confusion. All except Darlene’s. Darlene went white, and as a gorgeous Latina with sable hair and bronze skin, white was not her best color.

  Elaine looked from Sun to Ruby and back again. “What exactly does my daughter know?”

  “That I use my powers for good.”

  The entire room gasped. Well, almost the entire room. Quincy sat in a beige recliner, clearly amused. But Darlene had a different take as well.

  Sun knew better than to look
directly at her, and she studied the woman from her periphery. When Ruby had announced that Sun knew, Darlene went white. But when Ruby commented about using her powers for good, everyone except Darlene gasped. Darlene did just the opposite. She let out a breath, clearly relieved. What did she think Ruby had been talking about?

  Quincy cleared his throat, and asked, “So, they’re magic muffins? Is that your power?”

  He was covering. He’d noticed Darlene’s behavior as well and let his gaze flit to Sun for the briefest of moments to confirm the fact that she’d noticed too.

  As expected, the ladies laughed at his query. Even Darlene, whose laugh stemmed more from nerves than amusement.

  “I’m not magic. I just sort of sense things.”

  He nodded. “So, you can sense when things in Del Sol are tanking?”

  “What did you sense today?” Sun asked, not convinced of Ruby’s abilities in the least. But what could it hurt to ask?

  “Two days ago, actually. I knew something bad was going to happen, and I just wanted our finest to enjoy a muffin or two before it all went belly-up.”

  Elaine chimed in then. “I promise you, ladies, our secret is safe with my daughter.”

  Awww. That was sweet.

  She reached over and grabbed a muffin, before adding, “She doesn’t believe a word of any of this.”

  Several sets of eyes landed on Sun in horror.

  Oh, well. She needed a segue, anyway. “Actually, I need to know what you ladies have heard about the St. Aubins.”

  “He’s a handsome thing,” Wanda said, and Sun could only assume she was talking about Mr. St. Aubin.

  The fastest way to get the lowdown was to pass the info along to the Book Babes and see what sprang up. It had been a time-honored tradition since Sun was a kid. “Any dirt? I know they’re new, but—”

  “There’s always dirt,” Elaine said. “But Marianna genuinely seems to be in love with her husband.”

  The others agreed with a nod.

  “I think she had a rough life growing up,” a dark-haired Book Babe named Karen said.

  Sun nodded. “I only know that she was a waitress when she met Forest St. Aubin in Chicago.”